To the Point
by summerstwilight
Summary: Even if their story isn't true, it's to the point. Backstory on Jack and Tia Dalma.


Title: To the Point  
Author: summerstwilight  
Characters/Pairings: Tia, Jack, Will, smatterings of other pirates  
Word Count: 976  
Rating: PG, I suppose  
Genre: General/Drama  
Summary: Even if their story isn't true, it's to the point.  
Disclaimer: None of the characters in this story are mine, they all belong to Disney. No infringement meant.  
Spoilers: Just generally for PotC 1 and 2  
Warnings: None.  
Notes: Apologies for my inability to type in accent (a la Tia Dalma)

"What is so special about the compass?" Will had stopped at the door, his curiosity overcoming his better judgment. Tia Dalma looked up from her chair, a smile slowly spreading across her face.

"Does Jack not tell his companions everyting as he once did?"

Jack stopped on the dock, turning around with a fierceness that seemed unusual for him, and stomped back into Tia's hut. The medallions in his hair swung and clanged, as unharmonious and black a tune as befitted the rage of the captain. "I resent that, Tia, you know that! I could tell the boy of your past. He ought to be informed if you're so keen on… knowing him" Jack waggled his eyebrow suggestively, a juxtaposition to the dark fury in his eye.

"You'll do no such ting, Jack Sparrow, or you'll find you'll lose more then you have already." Tia stood up, and her small stature disappeared into a cloud of rage that seemed to dim the entire room. Jack stared at her a moment, then seemed to stand down.

"You never tell the story right anyway, love." A hint of teasing entered his tone, and Tia smiled again, bemused at her easy victory.

"Den you tell it, _Captain_" She smoothed her dress as she sat back down, beckoning the men back in. Will sat down hesitantly on a suspicious looking chair, then turned to Jack and Tia. Jack had already assumed a stance, the quiet easy pomposity that he always seemed to effect when he told the lies that made up the myth of his past. Tia was leaning back in her chair, as much a mystical priestess as one human being could seem to be. There was also a bemused, indulgent look that she got when she turned toward Jack.

"When I was a lad, I served on a merchant ship. Stowed away one day and I had no mother to run back to, so they kept me on-"

"Your sisters resented it, though." Tia interjected. Jack turned toward her in a flash, trying to shush her. "Go on, Jack." She said serenely. Jack looked at the men, a hard look that told them not to question anything and forget most of it had been said. Gibbs held back a chuckle, and Jack continued.

"The ship washed up on an island. I was the only survivor. I had to live off of our provisions, but they'd been lost in the storm mostly. I was in quite the quandary, you see…"

"What did you eat then? Sea turtles?" Will asked in a deadpan.

"Human. Flesh." Jack whispered, moving his hands for emphasis. "I had to forage for food after that. Think of it: no food, no shelter, no RUM." He nodded as the pirates made faces of horror at the prospect of having to endure that much time sober. "So in my wanderings and such, I happen upon a cave that seems in habited. I go in and find…"

"Food!"

"Chickens!"

"RUM!"

"Ducks!"

"Witches!" Everyone stopped and turned to see Cotton's parrot, sitting on an outcropping. He turned his head to the side, eyeing all of them, then squawked and flew away.

"Tia. Dalma." Jack stated, then leaned back, to see what affect that had on the men. They looked back and forth among themselves. Will looked down, then up at Tia Dalma.

"Sure, she was not as ravishing as she is now-" Jack gestured toward her. She smiled up at him, and he turned and grimaced, scrunching his nose at the thought. "- but neither am I. She told me she would give me anything I wanted if I helped her off the island.

"Not entirely"

"Yes, well, poetic license, my dear. In the end, I couldn't get her off of this rock, so we built her the lovely hut you see here, she gave me the compass, Robert's you uncle, Fanny's you aunt, there you have it." Jack sat back down, satisfied that he had both told the story and kept the truth to himself.

"Oh Jack, you always did have a hand for stories." Tia smirked.

"Then it wasn't true?" Ragetti looked up, slightly disappointed.

"Parts." Tia turned back to Will. "Are you satisfied, William Turner?"

"Yes." Will said, shortly.

"You know he is not telling the truth?"

"Yes."

"What do you think happened?"

"Why couldn't you leave the island?"

Tia grew thoughtful. Jack began to look nervously toward the door, to the sea. She looked at Will hard, then sighed to herself. "I was on Tortuga, doing what it is girls do there. Jack snuck me onto his ship, along with his sisters." She broke off, looking at Jack. "One of the girls fell in love wit Davy Jones, and he with her. But she could not lead his life. She would not be tied down." Tia sat taller, as though she were not a woman but a goddess, not a mortal being, but the very sea itself. "He followed her, and den… they did not know where he was. She thought she was safe, and so she built herself a village."

"But I thought he cut out his heart." Gibbs interrupted. "Cut it out and buried it, what he would never have to face it."

For the first that any of the men had seen, Tia Dalma seemed to be sorrowful. "He did. He came after her again, begging her to leave the land. She would not, nor could she flee. If she were on the sea, he would catch her. So he tied her to her little village, and she never forgave him for it. And he never forgot her." She paused, then turned to Will. "Take heed, William Turner, for ye've a touch of destiny about you too."

They sat silently in the hut, even Jack. Finally, Will turned to her "Is that true?"

Tia looked at Jack, who smiled. "Even if it's not, lad, it's to the point."


End file.
